Reporting Foundations

People jumping on. So I think we’re going to get started. So I want to say welcome and good afternoon, everybody, at least afternoon here on the east coast, where I am in Pennsylvania. Thank you for joining us today for our webinar on report foundations. My name is Janet Carroll. Read More

People jumping on. So I think we’re going to get started. So I want to say welcome and good afternoon, everybody, at least afternoon here on the east coast, where I am in Pennsylvania. Thank you for joining us today for our webinar on report foundations. My name is Janet Carroll. I’m one of the trainers in the DonorPerfect training team, and happy to be here to work with you today. So we are going to be talking about reporting, of course. So we’re going to review the fundamentals about reporting, what goes into it.

So we’ve there are two portions of it that we always have to think about, which records would we like to process in the report, and what data do we need to pull out of the report so we get exactly what we’re looking for, and we love to learn by doing. So yes, today we’re going to learn from examples. So let’s get started. So on the right hand side, we see, I know what looks like my GPS. All of our GPS is in different in all the different forms that we each use. And really what we’re thinking of is what data just like a GPS, but now we’re looking at that GPS of our database and saying like, which records are we looking to find out of our database? Once we find those particular records, we need to say to ourselves, what are we going to pull out about those records? Right? A quick thought, a quick example might be, I want to find my board members. Well, do I want my current board members, my former maybe both of them, and then once I find them, what details, what data about them do I want to pull out of the database? So let’s whoops, sorry, let’s take a a look at the general concept, and think about how every record in our database has a lot of details. You can look here. Everybody has a name, the relationship to the organization here I’m looking at it. They’re all Pennsylvania residents that is in common with each other. I see board members. I see committee I see a lot of different options in here. Right when I’m looking at it, I’m seeing right, I have a board member here, and a board member and a board member, Oh, here’s another board member. And then I’ve got Brenda’s volunteer mile is a volunteer. And then I’ve got a committee member over here with Parker. So lots of different attributes, a lot of different pieces of information about each of these records in the database, right? I even have their occupations, lawyer, chemists, etc. So lots of different pieces of information. And the idea, again, like the screen before this, all of these different pieces of information, which records are we looking for, and then once we get those records, okay? What kind of details do we want to pull out? In this case, we have their first names. We have that volunteer board member, committee member status. Maybe that’s a flag in your database, right? We have the state that they are resident of likely that from that address that’s on the main screen, right? We have some other, I’m going to say, piece of information, because we all keep track of our information a little bit differently within the scope of the database. So you get it your way. Gave last year, major donor, monthly donor, past monthly donor, right? One gave last year, one that says gave this year. So lots of different options that we get to say are taken care of or documented in the database, and what type of information do we want to pull out? So let’s look at a little bit more detail now and say you know what we want to document and everything that we need, knowing that we get to pull it out later on. So here, when we’re thinking about what our data looks like, with our data is keeping track of we need to think about where it’s located. What screen is it on? When I’m looking at the screen right here, I see Nell Jones. I see basic name, address, phone, engagement status. Look at that. Best giver, the engagement level, current year, hot prospect. You know, a little bit on the bottom there, it has our flags that says board member, lots of information, knowing what we’re looking for, and then, of course, where it’s located is going to help us to pull data out of DonorPerfect. So just having that the visual of where it’s at, and once we start using the screens that gives us that visual. So of where that would be, where would I enter it? Where would I find it? To look for that information. So imagine we find, found these four people, right? We have their names, we have first and last name, we have their email address, we have the date of the last gift this is saying to when we say to ourselves, what kind of data do we want to pull out of the database? So when I’m working with somebody one on one, I say, typically say to them, what would you like your data to look like? What kind of pieces of information do you want? So today we’re going to be focusing remember that we’re doing foundations here. So we’re going to be talking about and demonstrating with some of the standard formatted reports to give you that quick first look at using the database. So this is really kind of neat. So let’s actually do a quick demonstration here to give you that I’m going to say, look and feel before we I’m going to say, wind our way back to learn some of more of The Basics. So let me come into the database here. So here I am in DonorPerfect.

And a quick reminder, because a few more people came on from the beginning when we got started, my question and answer is open, so feel free and put any questions that you have in that so I am able, I’m able to glance at it throughout our webinar today. So happy to answer questions along the way. Thank you. Thank you.

So let’s take a look at running a report. So I’m going to come into reports and the Report Center, and we have a lot of different kinds of reports to choose from, and the first thing we that we need to do is say, like, what kind of report are we actually looking to run? Okay? And when we think about that, we’re thinking about, well, I need to know what kind of what information I need to look at, and that’s where we saw that display on that last screen. What I’d like to show you right now is the constituent listing report. If you don’t know where a report is located, no worries. Come over to the top here. Search for a report, and I’m going to start typing the name constituent summary. And here it is. I’m going to click on it. Okay, there we go. And now I want to say, You know what I want, my board members only, and my current board members even. I’m going to start from the top. This is options and filters on this orange tab here, the nickname for this options and filters is called sidebar. You’re going to hear a sidebar throughout many webinars that you’ll attend, and when you’re talking with support or trainer anywhere within our DonorPerfects team here at software, we use that nickname of sidebar quite often. But whether you’ve got a sidebar or not on the report, start with best practices. Start at the top and work your way down. I want my board members do I want to include those that are marked do not send mail. I’m going to say yes for right now, because I want to get the status of everybody. I’m going to skip over the anonymous donor designation, and the next up is the sort order. I do want to keep it as sort order of alpha, and I’m going to hear, I’m going to say current board members, and I’m going to come down here and I have, I’m at this filters by donor. The first thing I’m going to do right now is I’m going to click Clear values. This clear clicking clear values is blanking out shortcuts that we will learn about. And I’m also going to remove what I have here, this selection filter. This was clearly saved from a prior use of the report. So let’s do that. What I could do right now is I could click apply and ask for my current board members. I can do there’s two different ways I’m going to that’s one way. The other way is clicking in here, where I see flag, one of my shortcuts. I’m going to come in here with flag, I’m going to click my binoculars, and I’m going to look for my current board members. And here it is. I’m going to click Check the box, and I’m going to click Done, and I’m going to click run my report. So I’m going to hide my report of my sidebar here, just to save some space and give more space to the report itself, it looks like got a one page report, 19 records in here for my board members. I have my title board members, and now I have a lot of basic information about each of my current. Board members pretty nice. My hope is that that looked like an easy to run report, and it is, and you will learn more about that. But of course, anywhere along the line, please, please put something in the Questions pane, and I’m happy to help you learn more.

So let’s come back to the presentation, and let’s move on to learn about which records. How do we pick which records? This time, instead of that shortcut for the current board members, we’re going to learn the other end of it, which is via a selection filter. And there’s a few different steps in this process to not steps, but different points to go along the way, because they are called steps on the filter screen. So when I mentioned earlier, when we need to think about where is the information located that’s storing exactly what we need to put as restrictions on our data, that becomes super important. So what do we do? First, we have to tell the database what screen or table the information is coming from. I knew that my board member status, my current or former is on the main screen in the flag field. So here it’s saying what screen or table is it in? Table is if you were, if you like to work a little bit behind the scenes, okay, and know the structure of the data, but most people like to say, what screen can I find that information on? In this case, it’s the main screen where I find that board member information. And then it’s okay, well, what field is storing this information about my board members, and in this case, it’s the flag field my comparison operator is, how do I search for it? Well, in this case, I’m only looking for one value, and that is for the, you know, for looking for one value for current board members. So I’m going to have equal to the value in this case, is that one value for current board members, right? If there is more than one criteria, what if I wanted to to put something else in there, not just a board member, but I might want to say board members with a certain lifetime giving, let’s say, or locate in a certain region, depending on what’s going what kind of data that you have. So here, when it’s about criteria, is it more? Is there more criteria to define? And then if there is, the answer is yes, and we put it in there geographic, giving whatever it might be, right? Then we have to make a decision, do we have each of those criteria to be true at the same time, or either one of or any of them to be true? Because it doesn’t have to be two. It could be more than what, more than two restrictions that you’re putting in there. So you have to decide, does any one of them have to be true? Or can all do all of them have to be true at the same time? So something to indeed think about. So let’s now say to ourselves, another perspective, another look at it before we jump in and get closer to doing some demonstrations, imagine we have our pool of people, we have our group, all of our records in our database, and now we have to say we only want some of them. So as this illustration shows us, we have a big group of records in our database. Some of you might have hundreds. Some of you may have 1000s. And we’re saying to ourselves, we only want to pull some of them out. And that’s what these arrows are all about, pulling out some of them. And we that’s what we need to do. We need to find a way some common elements left we think about, how are we entering the data? So we can use some of those choices and pull them out of our database. So now what I’m thinking about, what are the options? How do I do this? We have a few options here. So one is called selection filters. We just a few moments ago, saw that there was multiple steps, knowing where the data is found, specifically from the screen and then the field and how do we find it? What values are we looking for? Selection filters. The sidebar allows us some shortcuts. I used a shortcut just a few minutes ago, she said I had a shortcut for the flags field that has my current board member option. So I took advantage of having that. I asked for it only a few clicks, and off I went. I was able to generate my report the topic of compound.

Filters is another option. It’s another way of restricting our data. That particular topic is not covered in today’s session, so you’ll come back for another webinar that focuses on that topic. What I’d like to do right now is jump back into the database, and this time around, generate a report that uses a selection filter for those current board members. So let’s come back into the database. Here I am, but this time, instead of using this report, I’m going to choose a different report, just to give you a little just more experience at seeing another display. So I’m going to come into reports, Report Center, and I want to now find the donor name and addresses report. So I’m just going to start in the search box on the upper right, and I’m just going to start typing the name of this report. I don’t even have to finish it. Is looking within the names, as well as in these information bubbles, is looking for whatever I’m typing in. So I didn’t even finish typing it, and I have the report that I want. I’m going to select that report. And now I’m going to, happens to have this sidebar on the left. So I’m going to, again, I’m going to start from the from the top, work my way down, and like before, the first question is, right, do I want to include those that are marked, do not send mail? And I’m going to say yes. Again, I’m not going to go worry about right now whether the anonymous donor selection is marked. I again, I’d like to have my list in alphabetical order, and here I think I will say current board members again. So now I’m also going to continue best practices. I’m going to click Clear values here and why, because I want to make sure that anything that may have been saved in all of these sidebar shortcuts are blanked out. They’re not going to get in the way and apply another restriction or a different restriction than what I am about to set up. I’m going to click apply right now because I’d like to set a selection filter using those steps that we just saw a moment ago, so I’m going to click Apply. Let’s maximize the screen, and now I’m going to add a brand new filter front and center. Here are all the steps that were that were shown a little bit earlier, and you can see that each of the steps are numbered. Whoops. Sorry about that. So we can see they’re all numbered here. So I’m going to start with step number one. Best Practices always to start with step number one, and I’m going to say again, I’m looking for my current board members that is designated on my main screen. So I’m going to select main bio. Notice that in step number two, I need to find my flag field. The default is favorite fields. We can see that flag is one of my favorite fields. But I’m going to make a very quick point here. I’m really glad that I kept with best practices selecting main bio, because now I only have the favorite fields on my main and bio screen. I don’t have my favorite fields throughout my entire database, so my favorite fields is a short scroll, even if I selected all fields, my scrolling is only through my main and bio field. So that is super great. So I’m glad I have my flag here. So I’m on the main screen. I’m in the flag field. I only want one value, so I’m going to say equal to in step three, and in step four, I’m going to click lookup codes again. Best practice, if you ever see that button, click on it, please. You don’t have to worry about is my cap locks on or off? Do I remember the code? What if somebody was cleaning up and maybe changed a code? I don’t have to worry about that. I’m simply coming in to find my current board members, and I’m going to select this code for it like I did earlier, but on a different screen, and I have no other criteria to to add to this. Otherwise, I can click add more criteria here in step five, and continue again across the top. So I’m going to click continue right now. I see everything I need right here right now. I’m not going to save it. I’m just going to continue on. I’m going to click Done, it looks like got a one page report, 19 records in here for my board members. I have my title board members, and now I have a lot of basic information about each of my current. Board members pretty nice. My hope is that that looked like an easy to run report, and it is, and you will learn more about that. But of course, anywhere along the line, please, please put something in the Questions pane, and I’m happy to help you learn more. So let’s come back to the presentation, and let’s move on to learn about which records. How do we pick which records? This time, instead of that shortcut for the current board members, we’re going to learn the other end of it, which is via a selection filter. And there’s a few different steps in this process to not steps, but different points to go along the way, because they are called steps on the filter screen. So when I mentioned earlier, when we need to think about where is the information located that’s storing exactly what we need to put as restrictions on our data, that becomes super important. So what do we do?

First, we have to tell the database what screen or table the information is coming from. I knew that my board member status, my current or former is on the main screen in the flag field. So here it’s saying what screen or table is it in? Table is if you were, if you like to work a little bit behind the scenes, okay, and know the structure of the data, but most people like to say, what screen can I find that information on? In this case, it’s the main screen where I find that board member information. And then it’s okay, well, what field is storing this information about my board members, and in this case, it’s the flag field my comparison operator is, how do I search for it? Well, in this case, I’m only looking for one value, and that is for the, you know, for looking for one value for current board members. So I’m going to have equal to the value in this case, is that one value for current board members, right? If there is more than one criteria, what if I wanted to to put something else in there, not just a board member, but I might want to say board members with a certain lifetime giving, let’s say, or locate in a certain region, depending on what’s going what kind of data that you have. So here, when it’s about criteria, is it more? Is there more criteria to define? And then if there is, the answer is yes, and we put it in there geographic, giving whatever it might be, right? Then we have to make a decision, do we have each of those criteria to be true at the same time, or either one of or any of them to be true? Because it doesn’t have to be two. It could be more than what, more than two restrictions that you’re putting in there. So you have to decide, does any one of them have to be true? Or can all do all of them have to be true at the same time? So something to indeed think about. So let’s now say to ourselves, another perspective, another look at it before we jump in and get closer to doing some demonstrations, imagine we have our pool of people, we have our group, all of our records in our database, and now we have to say we only want some of them. So as this illustration shows us, we have a big group of records in our database. Some of you might have hundreds. Some of you may have 1000s. And we’re saying to ourselves, we only want to pull some of them out. And that’s what these arrows are all about, pulling out some of them. And we that’s what we need to do. We need to find a way some common elements left we think about, how are we entering the data? So we can use some of those choices and pull them out of our database. So now what I’m thinking about, what are the options? How do I do this? We have a few options here. So one is called selection filters. We just a few moments ago, saw that there was multiple steps, knowing where the data is found, specifically from the screen and then the field and how do we find it? What values are we looking for? Selection filters. The sidebar allows us some shortcuts. I used a shortcut just a few minutes ago, she said I had a shortcut for the flags field that has my current board member option. So I took advantage of having that. I asked for it only a few clicks, and off I went. I was able to generate my report the topic of compound.

Filters is another option. It’s another way of restricting our data. That particular topic is not covered in today’s session, so you’ll come back for another webinar that focuses on that topic. What I’d like to do right now is jump back into the database, and this time around, generate a report that uses a selection filter for those current board members. So let’s come back into the database. Here I am, but this time, instead of using this report, I’m going to choose a different report, just to give you a little just more experience at seeing another display. So I’m going to come into reports, Report Center, and I want to now find the donor name and addresses report. So I’m just going to start in the search box on the upper right, and I’m just going to start typing the name of this report. I don’t even have to finish it. Is looking within the names, as well as in these information bubbles, is looking for whatever I’m typing in. So I didn’t even finish typing it, and I have the report that I want. I’m going to select that report. And now I’m going to, happens to have this sidebar on the left. So I’m going to, again, I’m going to start from the from the top, work my way down, and like before, the first question is, right, do I want to include those that are marked, do not send mail? And I’m going to say yes. Again, I’m not going to go worry about right now whether the anonymous donor selection is marked. I again, I’d like to have my list in alphabetical order, and here I think I will say current board members again. So now I’m also going to continue best practices. I’m going to click Clear values here and why, because I want to make sure that anything that may have been saved in all of these sidebar shortcuts are blanked out. They’re not going to get in the way and apply another restriction or a different restriction than what I am about to set up. I’m going to click apply right now because I’d like to set a selection filter using those steps that we just saw a moment ago, so I’m going to click Apply. Let’s maximize the screen, and now I’m going to add a brand new filter front and center. Here are all the steps that were that were shown a little bit earlier, and you can see that each of the steps are numbered. Whoops. Sorry about that. So we can see they’re all numbered here. So I’m going to start with step number one. Best Practices always to start with step number one, and I’m going to say again, I’m looking for my current board members that is designated on my main screen. So I’m going to select main bio. Notice that in step number two, I need to find my flag field. The default is favorite fields. We can see that flag is one of my favorite fields. But I’m going to make a very quick point here. I’m really glad that I kept with best practices selecting main bio, because now I only have the favorite fields on my main and bio screen. I don’t have my favorite fields throughout my entire database, so my favorite fields is a short scroll, even if I selected all fields, my scrolling is only through my main and bio field. So that is super great. So I’m glad I have my flag here. So I’m on the main screen. I’m in the flag field. I only want one value, so I’m going to say equal to in step three, and in step four, I’m going to click lookup codes again. Best practice, if you ever see that button, click on it, please. You don’t have to worry about is my cap locks on or off? Do I remember the code? What if somebody was cleaning up and maybe changed a code? I don’t have to worry about that. I’m simply coming in to find my current board members, and I’m going to select this code for it like I did earlier, but on a different screen, and I have no other criteria to to add to this. Otherwise, I can click add more criteria here in step five, and continue again across the top. So I’m going to click continue right now. I see everything I need right here right now. I’m not going to save it. I’m just going to continue on. I’m going to click Done, and I’m going to run my report. And here’s my report. It’s a different display. I still have my same 19 here, but the display here is different than the other report. So imagine, right? I You. Clicked apply. I added a new filter. I went through four steps in setting up the filter. I clicked continue. I clicked done. That was eight clicks. So I did eight clicks to get here. I’m going to remove that for a moment. And now if I come in here, I’m going to click on the binoculars, click on the current board members, that’s two clicks. I’m going to click Done. That’s three clicks compared to the earlier rate. So clearly the and I’m going to click the Run Report, I’m going to get the same 19 as I got earlier. So when it is something as simple as having a this the field that I need flag already here. It makes it very convenient, and it was a huge time saver depending on what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, whether you go the route of selection filter, or if you’ve if all the fields, everything that you need, or some of the fields actually that you need for restrictions, is here on your sidebar, then you’re going to decide how what is best for you in that scenario. So if there’s any questions, just feel free and please put them in the Questions pane. So let’s come back here, and we’re going to start at the beginning with the Report Center and saying, Where’s all this data? How do I how do I decide what reports? How do I know what reports contain different pieces of data, pieces of information, or data that becomes information to us. So this is the landing screen when we go to the menu item that says reports, and we select Report Center. This is really what we all have access to. So when we’re thinking about that, I think about what’s going on here. So when you first come in at the Report Center, the default is having all reports available to you. Okay? And we saw that, because what I did was I went into my search and I searched a report, not even caring at the time where it was physically located. I could have but I want to show you that we could simply come in here, straight off, and simply search for a report. And that was really nice.

So next, of course, is the fact that we have four folders within the Report Center, and you can always access them anytime. So one folder is called listings, and the listings are primarily constituent based reports. I could ask for donors last month, in the month of June, it’s still going to come out donor by donor. I could ask for my board members or anyone in Pennsylvania, they may or may not have given. So it’s not necessarily about giving, about donations, but I can just ask for address, where the state on the main screen within the address, of course, on the main screen, I’ve got a state field, so on the main screen in the state field, I want it equal to Pennsylvania listing report organized by the constituent. The majority in listings is organized by the constituents. The financial folder, on the other hand, is all based on financial data. Think about it for a moment. When I have financial data, I can organize it all different ways. I can have it gift by gift, pledge by pledge. Maybe I want to group my financial data by General Ledger code or solicitation code, and show results of the groupings, maybe the count of donors and the number of gifts and the dollars. But again, it’s financial is what rules this folder. So I also have lapsed donor reports. I also have top donor reports. The list goes on, but it’s all has a basis of financial information. On the bottom here, it says others. So thus there is a folder for other reports. We’ve got your contact, management, membership, management, Moves Management, and then there’s a couple of charts. One is a pie chart. One is a year over year bar chart that is actually monthly. Is how it displays. So you can have basically with a extended date range. You can see January 2023 with bar with next to January 2024 pretty nice. The folder I hear on the bottom left, easy reports. These are custom linear reports. We gave you some, okay? And you get to customize. You can also add to it. And as this footnote here, it is dependent upon the DonorPerfect package. Okay, so know what DonorPerfect package you have if you don’t see the easy reports or you’ll see it. If you click on it and it’s empty, it just means that your DonorPerfect package does not have that. Just reach out to your account manager if you want it. If you if it should have been there, of course, we’ll, we’ll check all of that out for you. So what I want to do is show you actually show your round in a demo style here. So let’s just take a few moments. Since I did a lot of describing, let’s actually come in here. I’m going to come into reports and Report Center. No, I’m not going to save my setup. All right. So the default right reports, Report Center, the default right front and center is the fact that the orange folder on the left is representative of all reports, so I didn’t do anything. This is the default. So that’s why I was able to search. And it was looking through all the reports for whatever the word or phrases the phrase that I was looking for. If I wanted to only look in any one of those four folders that I just talked about. Of course, I can do that right here. If I click on Financial I only have the financial reports, and I can see at the bottom that there are 48 of them. On the bottom right, I see that it covers over two pages, right? So I can do all of that. Let me give you a quick going to come back to all reports for a minute, and I just want to take a moment to explain how this screen is set up, because you and your colleagues have the same choices. But the display here might be a little bit different between the, you know, between colleagues. So the way that is organized is is a double sort. First is sorted by the gold stars, and the gold stars, as opposed to gray stars, the gold stars are considered favorite reports. They are toggles, so you can click them on and off. You can go to gold to gray and gray to gold. So the first sort level are the favorite reports, and the second level sort is the date last run, or date accessed in reverse date order. So the last time I was in here running this particular report over here, one of my favorites was a month ago, just over a month ago, June, 20. So it’s again, I have all my favorites, and you can see that it gets earlier and earlier, and once I get to the earliest favorite report that I’ve accessed there, the rest of my favorite reports are in alphabetical order. I come down to my non favorite reports. Again, it’s the same thing i It’s reverse date order. So I’ve ran two reports today. They were not my favorites or in my group of favorites, but they have today’s date on it. So they’re at the top, and you can see going backwards. And if I go to the next page, look at this. I’ve run all of these reports, and when I get to the end where there’s no more dates, the rest of these reports are then listed in alphabetical order. So that’s why we all have the same options as our colleagues, okay, but the order that they’re listed in because of what’s a favorite or not favorite, or what you particularly have access and run compared to your colleague. So I hope that that brings you some insights, some takeaways on how that’s organized. So we’re going to do is, we’re going to, as we said at the early at the outset, is we’re going to learn by example, by actually setting up and running reports. So we’re going to run each of these reports. We’re going to do a setup for each one of these so we’re going to look at the current volunteers. We’re going to look at the gifts received in the last year for a specific general ledger. We’re going to generate a list of names assigned to a specific solicitor. We’re going to get a name list of new donors, and we’re going to generate a list of donors and their gifts for the past three years of fundraisers. So let’s get started with the first example. So say we would like to have a list of volunteers, and a volunteer is identified as such in this example is using the flag field. So can anybody tell me use a quest to Q A in your chat, in your zoom option?

What kind of records? What am I going to do that? What am I going to set up here? How am I going to find my records? Think about the screen, the field, the value, what am I going to be looking at? How am I going to find the records that I need? Does anybody want to jump in here? The hint is it’s in the desired outcome. Okay, so. When I’m looking at this, it says, such as using the flag field. So this is one way of doing it. Ah. Mary Beth says the main bio screen, exactly. That’s where I would find in main bio the data is stored together. So there are actually two different screens, but the data, the flag field, is stored as on the main screen, so as part of that main bio, exactly, right? So that is, that’s very good. Thank you so much. Oops, Clear that out, all right. So yes, we’re going to ask on that main screen. We’re going to ask for the flag field equaling volunteer. So let’s go there and do that. I’m going to come back in the database, and I am going to run a report. And let’s come back to that earlier report. You know, I’m already in the Report Center, right? I’m already at reports, Report Center. And here I’m clicking on listings, this time, just to get you familiar, this is a folder with a small number of reports. The majority of them, yes, are constituent based. So what I can I don’t have to search for it if I wanted to, I could, but I actually see it on this short list. So I’m going to simply click constituent summary. Ah, all right. So what am I going to do now? I’m going to start at the top again. Do I want to include no mail names? I’m going to say no for this one. Because, as I’m thinking about, I want to, well, I’m thinking about if I, if I say no, it’s because eventually maybe I want to mail to them or reach out to them. And you know, if I want to include that again, keep the box checked. Of course, always your your option, depending on what your needs are. I want these in alphabetical order. I can fill in a title if I want. I’m going to click my clear values, and I’m going to remove the filter that’s here, and I’m going to come down, and if you remember, I did have my flag field here, so I’m going to take advantage of it and look for my flag of volunteers. And I do have one, actually, that is my current volunteers. I’m just going to check that box and click Done, and I’m going to run report. And now I have and I could as well I could do before I could hide my setup in the sidebar, and I don’t see a page number in the upper right, so I know that this is a one page report, and in this particular kind of report, I have 19 in this report, because I’m asking for volunteers, and there’s nothing here about volunteers on these columns. I likely do want to say I should be putting in a title for it so I know what that report’s about. It’s a good practice anyway. I could get lost without it in this case, because I don’t know what they have in common. So I would know, want to know that the flag was current board members in this I’m sorry, current flag, current volunteers in this particular report. Pretty neat. All right, so let’s come back and look at our next report. This time we need a report that shows the gifts received in the last year for the unrestricted general ledger fund. Wow. So what kind of records? How do we find the records? So who wants to chime in now? Who wants to see Tell me, how am I going to find the gifts in the last year and the unrestricted general ledger fund? Where do I go? What do I how do I find those restrictions to designate in my setup? any thoughts, gift screen, exactly for the general ledger, right? And gifts. What else beyond the gift screen? How do I know how to find the gifts in the last year, as well as that unrestricted general ledger fund. Any thoughts, I think you’re all going to follow along with what I’m going to show you, right? We are going to start with the gift screen itself, right? And so that itself, of course, is pretty important. So because of the nature of this particular report, we are going to get a transaction by transaction listing, and we’re going to ask for the date range between two dates, right, January 1 and December 31 of last year. And then we’re also going to ask that the general ledger is unrestricted, and remember what was mentioned before. If we had more than one restriction, we need to decide, do they both have to be true at the same time? Or either or any one of them? In this case, there’s two, but basically any of them be true? True, or all of them true at the same time. So we’re going to do it says on the bottom. We’re going to look at the gifts by date report. So let’s do that. Let’s come back in here. I’m going to come back into reports and Report Center, and I see my gifts by date right here, the third one down. I could, of course, search for it, because my default remember, is looking through all of the reports. I’m just going to click. I’m going to simply click on my gifts by date. And I’m going to start from the top and work my way down. I see my date boxes on the top left. So I’m going to click, if I use my calendar picker again. I’m looking for my dates the gifts last year, and I’m going to presume, right now, I’m going to do it by the calendar. So I’m going to back arrow and get back to January of last year. And whether you like to use the arrows forward and backwards, or you like to use the month ones. It’s all up to you. I’m going to select the one for January 1, the day of the month, and now we’re going to come in for the second calendar picker. Or I can just highlight this, and I could even type it in myself. Whatever works for you is, is fine, long as we get it in there, everybody has their own preferences. Again, I would normally be putting a report hitting heading. I’m just saving time right now. I’m going to click my clear values so would blank out anything that may have been saved. I am going to remove my filter here. This was clearly saved from another time somebody wanted to save it with the report. I’m going to remove that and say, Yes, I’m sure I want to remove the filter. I still need to get that general ledger of unrestricted into play. I could set a selection filter for the general ledger. I can also come down and see if I have general ledger is one of my shortcuts. And sure enough, I happen to have general ledger as one of my shortcuts. I’m going to click the binoculars, and I’m going to select my unrestricted right here, and I’m going to click Done. I’m going to click here, and let’s run my report. Oh, no, data qualified. I don’t have any in that date range. Okay? I think I’m going to extend that into this year, and let’s see if I have any now that’s in that unrestricted with a larger date range, huh? And I have two pages now, and you know what they this particular report is always in date order. That’s why there’s no a reminder. There’s no sort option or opportunity in that sidebar. So this is controlled already by the report. So my earliest one is January of this year, okay, so I don’t have last year’s, but I have this year’s, okay, but remember, I’m looking for unrestricted. I clearly could have gifts from last year, but I don’t have any unrestricted, okay, so again, looking and knowing what kind of data I am looking for is what the goal here is. Let’s learn how to find it, what the process is, let’s go to the next report, report number three. And now we want to find a report that shows the names of constituents who are assigned to a specific solicitor. So I’m going to designate the solicitor this time, and we’re going to say that the solicitor is Joe Bag of Donuts. So remember, I want to find the constituents who were assigned to Joe. So one of my thoughts is, what kind of data, what kind of information do I have in Joe’s portfolio that he follows, that he’s responsible for. I’m going to use the history list report, as you can see here on the bottom. Let’s go in and do that. So I’m going to come back into the database. I’m going to come to reports and Report Center. No, I’m not going to save my changes. And by the way, this the where it says save my changes. It’s really all about the sidebar setup with all of my restrictions. It’s not about this two page report I generated. It’s about the setup of the report, because today, or any day, I could be adding more data that satisfies those restrictions. So I’m really saving those restrictions if I wanted to save it for the future, but I do not want to save it all right, so I wanted to come in and find the history list. So I’m going to, in my search, I’m going to just simply start typing history. And here it’s a short list of seven reports. You can see I have 104 total reports to look through, and seven of them have the word history, either in the name or in the report descriptions that are set up. I’m going to click on history list, and let’s do this. I’m going to start at the top, and I really want to find any information that’s here about those that have Joe assigned as their solicitor. I’m going to keep this as a donor filter, so that everything I find is just all about those that Joe is soliciting is responsible. I’m going to include the no mail names as well, because I want to get that complete picture for Joe. I’m not printing so I’m not going to think about this right now, but there are options. I’m going to keep this as an alphabetical list, but you know, we could do other sorts besides alpha, we’ve got the zip code, and if we click on other we then have a huge litany of lots of choices. These are all main bio fields for sorting. Since this is a main bio report, but I’m going to keep it on alpha. If I wanted to add a title. Of course, I can do that. I’m going to come down. I’m going to click Clear values, just in case anything was saved. I’m also going to remove this filter, and I you can see what’s there. It’s already there, but I’m going to remove it. I’m looking for the solicitor field. It’s typically a main it’s a main biofield because it’s a big picture about records in my database. I do have a shortcut here, but I’m going to do it both ways. Let’s do this. Let’s do this report both ways. And so I’m going to first do the Selection Filter route. So I’ve already done a clear values. I’m going to click Apply, and I’m going to add a new filter, because it’s good to get practice setting filters. So I’m going to say on the main screen, main bio, I want to find the solicitor field. I’m going to see if solicitor is one of my favorites, and it is not. So I’m going to click all fields. Remember what I said earlier, all fields, but all fields only on the main and bio table, main and bio screens, because I’ve made that restriction in step one, so now I can scroll all I want in step number two, and I’m going to certainly scroll down to solicitor, but I can’t go past zip code. Can’t go past this. Can’t go past here, because this is just the main bio fields. So I’m good, right? So I’m leaving this as Solicitor. I want it equal to only one person, Joe Bag of Donuts. So I’m going to click again best practice reminder. Here’s my button. If it’s there, I’m going to click it like I am now, and I’m going to select JB for Joe bag of donuts, and I’m going to click continue. This looks good. I’m not going to save it right now, but I’m going to click done and I’m going to run this report. So looks like I don’t have too big of a report. When I’m looking at that vertical scroll bar here, I’ve got Kate Beckett that is assigned to Joe. This particular report’s not going to show the solicitor. So, of course, another reason why I would want to add a title to the listing so I see information giving history and some basic information about Kate. And I come down and I see Jane Lynch, and that’s it. I see the total of two. But this history list can be extensive because of the extensive giving history that you have here to display. So that’s how I got it by the filter. I’m going to come back here. I’m going to remove the filter. This time, remove the filter, yes, and now I’m going to come into my sidebar shortcut fields, as I tend to call them. Oops, I don’t want flag. I want here’s the solicitor. Use flag before. So here’s my solicitor. I’m going to click my binoculars. Here’s the same set of choices that I had earlier. I wanted Joe. So I’m going to check the box before I had that code of JD that was in blue. But now I have check boxes when I had the binoculars. Now I can select as many as I need. I’m going to just select the one I’m looking for. Click Done, and now I’m going to run my report again, and I have the same people, right? I’ve got Kate Beckett at the top. I then have Jane Lynch, and that’s it. Here’s again, is the total that I say at the bottom, like my total count of two. And here the footnote is saying that this is including right records Mark do not send mail. So if I were to uncheck the box for including no mail names and then run the report. Yes, I’m always going to get reminded of Did I or didn’t I include the no mail records. If there’s any questions, please, please ask. I hope there are many takeaways. If anybody has any stress points about maybe some reporting that you’ve been doing and you want me to clarify? I can do that while I’m demonstrating or simply pause and, of course, answer your questions. Happy to do. So. Let’s go on to the next report. We would like to have a name list of new donors.

The working definition of a new donor for this particular report is a person who has given the first and only gift in the last six months. Has anybody ran across this scenario yet, or noticed in their own database, where we would find information about a new donor, and what kind of information are we going to find? And it says the first and only gift, ah, Kristen says Not yet. These are great takeaways to simply have as a reminder Kristen of what data is actually available for us when we’re running reports. So what are we going to do? We’re going to look at the first gift date is on or after January 1. That’s about six months ago. And I also need to make sure that I limit this report to only those that gave one gift so far. The idea is they’ve given the first time. We want to ask them at a certain point and have the strategies there to get them to be second time donors. That’s very popular. So we’re going to run the constituent summary report, and you’re going to see, as it says here, what data here, it says we’re interested, of course, the first name and the last name and the date of the first gift Absolutely. But this constituent summary also includes the lifetime number of gifts. So we’re going to get that confirmation that we did it properly when we see that column with only with the number one for each of the donors, and we can see when somebody’s only given once, the date of the first gift is also the date of the last gift. So if whatever, however we look at it’s going to show, though, that particular report is going to show the date of the last gift. But when we see that there’s only been one gift, right, the date of the last the date of the last gift is the same as the date of the first gift for those one time donors. So let’s come in and run this constituent summary report. So I’m going to come back into reports and Report Center. No, I’m not going to save that setup, and we’re going to run that constituent summary. So I’m going to come in here in the search and start typing. Oh, and here, I don’t have to finish typing. It’s right here already. So here is my report, and I have two restrictions in order to get to the point where I can run my report. So if you’d like to include no male names, of course, make that decision thinking about the purpose. Okay, how do I want it sorted? Right? This is only going to be one sort. It’s always going to be ascending low to high, okay, earliest to latest on dates, whatever it might be so low to high on the gift count, but we all the gift counts here are going to be one. So we get a decision. Add the title if you want, and especially if it’s going to be hanging around, if it’s a quick report and you’re going on to the next we might not need it. I’m going to do my clear values, and I’m going to remove my filter that’s here. And remember, I need to have two things here. I need about the date of the first gift and the number of gifts. I’m going to set a selection filter here, and I’m going to right here with Selection Filter. I’m going to click Apply, and I’m going to add a new filter here top center. And the first thing I want to do is about the first the date of the first gift. The date of the first gift is calculated by DonorPerfect. It looks at all of the gift transactions and says, okay, here they all are. What’s the date of the first of all of these gifts. So I need to look there, and it’s calculated for every single record in the database. You may or may not have it displayed on your screen, okay, but it’s calculated. It’s there. I am looking in in step number two, I’m looking first at my favorite field. Of course, here it is my initial gift date. I’m thrilled it’s right there as one of my favorites, and I want that it said since January 1 of this year. So I’m going to say greater than or equal to, and then I’m going to put in January 1. Here we go. You can use a calendar picker. You can type it in. You could have clicked the calendar picker and forward, backward. Click the month to get back to January and the one in the calendar itself, your choice. And wait a second. We need to make sure that there’s only one gift lifetime so far. So yes, I do need to click add more criteria in step number five. So I’m going to click add more criteria now I need to think about, where am I going to find that total lifetime, number of gifts, same place. Main bio, why the database is updating this for us. It’s looking at all of the transactions, and in this case, it’s simply counting them. So I’m going to stay in main bio in step one. Oh, and by the way, did you notice when I click the add more criteria? What I’ve already done is here, so it’s a good reminder of what’s already done. So now I’ve happened to be using main bio again, and now I’m looking for the total number of gifts in step number two, huh? And we have number of gifts. Here it is. If this wasn’t here, right, we would have clicked all fields at the top and scrolled to find it. But I want the number of gifts equal to one, so I’m just going to do equal to in step three, and in step four, choose the number, enter the number one, and I’m going to click continue. So again, I have two restrictions, the initial gift date, right the date of the first gift is on or after, is on or after January, 1 of this year. And then I have the lifetime number of gifts is one. So the question is, when I have more than one restriction, I have to make a decision the default is and that both of them have to be true at the same time. But there’s always an option of war, like, do I want one time only donors? Right? And at any time, like they could have given the for the first time, many years ago. And I also want those that gave for the very first time this year, even if they gave more than one gift, or that would be an or right either one of them to be true, and means that they gave for the very first time this year, and they have only given one gift at this moment in time. Ever lifetime giving is only one gift count. I’m going to leave it with and because that is indeed what we were asked to do, I’m going to click Done, and I’m going to run my report, and I’m going to hide this, I can see more, and we can see donors this year, right? All of these are, this is alphabetical, but these are all the dates in this most recent gift. Most recent date given column is all 2024, and just like we asked, we wanted one time donors and everything in that right hand column for number of gifts, they’re all ones. So it’s just what we were looking for. So I find that pretty nice. I’m going to show my sidebar again if you find that your restrictions are restrictions that you use often, then what you could do is add fields that are used often to your sidebar right here. So I had flags that I use a lot, and solicitor, but if you use that first aid given, like I just did, or your lifetime number of gifts, the number of gifts often, then it’s worthy to take up space here in your sidebar, and you could easily add and remove simply by coming in here to manage fields. And here this is, by the way, this part is only for you each of your sidebars, what it looks like is only for you. Your colleagues will look different the way that they may have customized theirs if they have customized right? It’s on the screen for everybody to customize if they choose for themselves. So I could be using my available fields here and adding it to my selected fields, and I could literally remove some of my selected fields here, if I don’t, if I find that, I don’t need that as a shortcut. So make your changes with selecting and the arrows, and don’t forget to, of course, click Save at the end. I’m going to cancel out of here. I want to come back in and I have one more report. Example to show you here, we need to run a report that shows the donors and their gifts for the past three years of fundraisers. Hmm, what does that mean? Right past three years of fundraisers? So I’m going to have a date range of three years, and I’m going to look at my solicitation codes, but I want more than one value, so I’m going to choose several fundraisers.

I’m going to run this particular report report by the history list on the bottom, so we can actually get them consolidated, donor by donor, instead of a list of donations. I want this to be grouped donor by donor. So let’s take a quick look at that history report. I’m going to come into reports and Report Center. No, I’m not going to save any of this, and I’m going to find my history report again. Here we go, history list. All right, I’m going to do this. This is an interesting option. I think I only want to see. I want to qualify by the three years and the fundraising, but I actually want to only see those. If I use a donor filter, it’s going to qualify me for the right donors. I’m going to see their entire giving history, not just about those fundraising transactions, if I use my the gift filter, and yes, there’s that in the question mark, you can learn get a reminder about this, the gift filter is not only going to find those same donors and because of the donation restrictions, but it’s only going to be showing me those particular transactions. So I’m going to do that restriction this time. I’m going to do the gift filter, and we’re looking for some history. So I am going to include no mail names. This is not for mailing right now, the usual sorting and titles. I’m going to click in here my clear values, and I’m going to remove my filter. And I could do this with the sidebar, but I don’t want to, because I’m going to show you something specific about setting up this particular filter, and then we’ll be just wrapping up with a quick recap. So I’m going to come into gift pledge, because I need to put in my three years. So I have my gift date, and I need to put in my three years. So I’m going to say between, soon as I click between, I have two date boxes I’m going to come into here, if I’m thinking of 20, my fiscal year ends June 30. So I could, if I wanted, go back three years, right, and say, I want my July 1 2022, to 23 to 24 so I’m going to do July 1 to 2022, to june 30, 2024 right? So I have three fiscal years, 22 to 20 whoops. Did I make that? 22 to 2323 Oh, I should have gone back one more year. Sorry about that. Here we go. That’s what I meant, July of 21 to June of 22 July of 22 to July of 23 in July of July to June of 21 to 2222 to 2323 to 24 I got it, but now I still need to get the solicitation code. So I’m going to click add more criteria, and I’m going to click gift pledge, and I’m going to click solicitation. But now I need multiple solicitation codes, so I’m going to say, in step number three, include multiple matches. So when I click my lookup codes, because I see this button, now I’m going to say, You know what, I need to go back a few years. So I’m going to show my inactive codes, and now I’m going to come in and I’m going to go back a few years, and but I want looking for my fundraisers, not my annual appeals, or my board giving. So I’m going to click on a few things here. I have some bridging the gap the culinary food. I’m just looking for what is really in that starting race, basically from July of 2021, on up, right? So I’m not sure when the Gala was. I’ll include that. I’ll include a few of these, right? I’m just looking not, not familiar yet with the timing of these, so I’m going to adjust again. I’m looking for fundraisers, which was the question, right? So, well, this is, could have been a fundraiser for that membership? No, I don’t want that the pause for a cause. I think I’d like this as well, right? And you can see how we do it. Just find what you need, and then click Done. At the end, I’m going to click continue, and you’ll see that all of my choices dates are in apostrophe marks, my codes are in apostrophe marks, right and now I want to basically do the same thing. I actually want them both to be true at the same time. I’m going to use end, I’m going to click Done. And now let’s run this report. So we’re just at the hour mark after this, I’m going to run a quick recap. So thank you all for joining me today, and hope, of course, you have a lot of takeaways. This is a great report. It’s going to focus in we can already see on this top one here I have I see the the golf tournament solicitation raised money for the building fund that was a fundraiser. So it’s not showing me the lifetime giving, which I see in the top right of 25 here. There’s a almost $2,500 given. But the fundraiser for the last three years is not everything, and that’s exactly the point here. So I have all different, you know, what’s going on? So far, there’s only been one transaction in those, oh, this particular one, amazing fruit company had two transactions and, you know, with those qualifiers. So it’s going to give you the history. He just went at three. So it’s all a matter of, what do you need, how do you want it what? How do you want it displayed? So we always want to keep that in mind as well, because you do have control over selecting the report that’s going to work best for you. So to summarize, we want to always choose which records we want to include in the outcome. That’s our filter, our selection filter, and the data is what data points we actually want to see in the outcome. But you’ll notice every time I went into the database, I chose my report first, and then I chose which records were going to be processed. So getting familiar with what the reports look like is really good, a good thing to do, to click on Reports, see what they look like. Join us for some more webinars, and again, learn and get literally shown what some of the reports look like, because you’ll get a taste from the descriptions about the setup of it, what it’s going to do, I am happy to answer any questions that you have. Again, I want to thank everybody for joining me today. I am going to stay in the database here in case anybody has any questions. So look forward to you joining at another webinar.

So have a wonderful day, but I’ll hang around until last person is here leaves, unless there’s no questions. Of course, you all right, good luck with all of your reporting. I hope you all have now a great jumpstart and many takeaways to help you indeed get started with your reporting or continue with the reporting, having a bit more knowledge now on how it’s all organized and some processes.

Mary Beth, the recording is automatically sent, I think, like around the next hour or so, so everybody that attends gets a Recording. So thank you for asking. Perfect Thank you. Applause. It looks like there’s no more questions. So have a wonderful day and see you at the next webinar. Everybody. Take care. Bye, bye, bye.